Climate suitability for European ticks: assessing species distribution models against null models and projection under AR5 climate

Table 1 Performance of observed SDMs based on observed tick distributions and climate compared to null models

Tick species	Maxent null climate	Maxent null species distribution	Mahalanobis distance null climate	Mahalanobis distance null species distribution
Dermacentor marginatus	96	98	95	99
Haemaphysalis punctata	96	98	98	99
Haemaphysalis sulcata	96	96	98	99
Hyalomma lusitanicum	88	64	94	72
Hyalomma marginatum	95	99	96	98
Ixodes ricinus	94	98	96	99
Rhipicephalus annulatus	96	95	98	96
Rhipicephalus bursa	95	98	95	99

Values indicate the number of null models (n = 99) whose median AUC scores were significantly exceeded by those of observed models (1000 random 60:40 training:testing data splits per model). Significant differences identified using post hoc multiple comparison tests with Bonferroni corrected critical values from the t distribution. Attainment by an observed model of a median AUC score significantly higher than those of 95 null models was deemed to indicate a significant relationship between the climate predictor variables and the distribution of the tick species. Underlined values indicate that no significant relationship was identified for that species’ observed model(s)

ISSN: 1756-3305